"Rob", I said as we sat in a small Costa Rican restaurant that styled itself as a "Restarante Italiano y Pizzeria" eating very strange but good pizza and watching a 6 inch long grasshopper try and exit through the glass doors while Bohemian Rhapsody played in the background, "Where is DJ when you need him?" (More of the drinks senora? (Scaramouche, scaramouche, will you do the fandango?))

It seems to be a theme, and perhaps the reason we write these blogs at all. No matter where we go during a day, we will see countless things and experience countless moments and wish we were sharing them with friends and family.

Our best friends, Alice and DJ come up most often, undoubtedly because of similarities in age and experience. Today, for example, we drove for about an hour - the last part down a fabulous country road, small mountains in the near distance, weird and wild looking animals grazing in the fields and ditches along the way - to a small town called Guaitil, population 700. About 200 of these people (according to the guide book) actually still create pottery in the traditional pre-Columbian way. The town seems prosperous, with some streets paved, a bank/postoffice and even a small place that does photocopies, faxes and has internet access. (All closed, of course, as it is Saturday in a non-tourist town.)

At the first place, we were greeted by a team of three small children, who immediately called for their uncle.."Venga, Tio! Los Gringos!" the oldest girl calls. (Come on Uncle! There be white folks!) The artista was a young man in his mid-twenties who had created all of the beautiful things in his place. He spoke English well, and described to us all of the wonderful things you could do with his pottery. Including the fact that they could withstand temperatures up to 1000 degrees C, and were microwave safe. Alice would love this, I thought to myself. I gave Rob the job of picking something out, since I would have taken one of everything.

A second place, with different beautiful stuff, and another young man, this one with sketchy English but he wanted to try! "Quanto questas?" I ask. "Seben dollares!" "Y esta?" I pick up another piece, but I had exhausted his English skills, and he types "15" into his calculator and shows it to me.

We decide that although we have only seen one percent of what Guaitil has to offer, we had better say "basta!" and leave, while we still had enough money to get home. The girls would have loved that place, I thought.

And so it goes. Wes would love that! or Too bad Vicky's not here! or Mum would really approve of this place! we will say. Alice and DJ have to see this! Lincoln must bring Deanna here, she would love it! And Geoff is always looking for Duncan so he can have a reason for looking at georgous girls far too young for him. Always there is something to share. So much so that we have a proposition for the lot of you - stay tuned for the end of the post....

...but, lest you feel that it is all sunshine, sand and something else starting with s that I can't bring to mind at the moment, we have our not so good excitement as well. Another accident with Larry's truck - this one, a guy on a motorcycle runs into the door and tries to blame me. He spoke no English, and my Spanish was not anywhere near up to the specialized language he was using to describe his side of the story, and what he wanted us to do. He finally agrees to shoulder half the blame, and instead of calling the police and getting his insurance involved etc... we drive all over the area looking for a bank machine so we can give him a bit of money to pay for the damages to his bike. Just to make our journey for money more fun, it seems that the bank networks were mostly down, and every machine we went to was either out of service or only dispensing cash to its own customers. We found a Scotiabank eventually in Liberia, only 35 minutes away, took out some colones and sent him on his way. Dios mio.

If anyone else hits this truck, Rob says, he can keep it and we will just buy it from Larry. We are now so paranoid, that we are going to forgo the trip to see the live volcano and sit in the hot springs, for fear that someone else will hit it and really damage it badly this time.

And now the proposition. In 2017 or 2018, during our 35th year of marriage, Rob and I would like to drive the entire length of the Pacific coast, from Alaska to Chile. We will need all 10 years to prepare for this, we figure, but we would like it if everyone who can would come along. It would be wonderful for us to share our experiences live, instead of just writing about them.

What do you say?